Electrical connectors in which a hollow electrical member has a crossbore in which is seated a ball that is urged transversely through the crossbore to engage and clamp a conductor wire is known in the art. Such prior art manner of clamping the conductor wire to a conductor member usually require a crimping operation to crimp the hollow conductive member to the wire.
The present invention provides a no-crimp connector that installs with no tools, is reusable, gauge-specific in some instances, reusable on stranded or solid wires.
The object of the invention is to provide improvements over prior art electrical connectors of the ball clamp type. Another object of the invention is to provide a crimpless electrical connector which has one end adapted for solid wire and the other end adapted for stranded wires.
The invention provides a no-crimp electrical connector for electrically connecting first and second electrical wires to each other and includes a non-conductive housing member having at least first and second connection chambers separated by an insulated wall, each connection chamber having a threaded interior wall. A conductive metal insert member is securely mounted in the insulated wall. The insert member has first and second ends, each said first and second ends being in said first and second connection chambers, respectively. The first end has a wire passage having a diameter D1 for receiving the first wire. A crossbore in the first end has a ball seated therein. The ball has a diameter D2 which is larger than diameter D1, and a first threaded male member adapted to be threadedly engaged with the threads in the first connection chamber us adapted to engage the ball and cam the ball inwardly in the crossbore to engage and clamp the first wire received in the first wire passage. The second end of the insert member has a wire-engaging clamp means for pressing the second wire end against a surface on the second end of said insert member and a second hollow threaded male member adapted to engage the threads in the second connection chamber and clamp the second wire to the insert member.